DD, we did apparently have talks with Hynes and went after Finnucane (and Fitzgibbon for coach before all that). We keep coming up with duck eggs in that department which is its own entire problem. In reality, only got Suli on the second go as he was adamant he didn't want to play for us the first time around. Molo and Su'a were both bench/reggie players at their last teams so it was an easy choice for them to take a pay increase. I know it doesn't change the fact that they were good pick ups but never going to have the same impact as landing a marquee player who you can build a team around. I agree, we. just need to bite the bullet in this area. The lower grades don't seem to reflect the fact that we are developing a truck load of juniors a la Panthers 7 years ago. Where is this club going except for around in circles?
The media and the club itself sell us this idea that these young Sloan, Amone, Ramsey types are the future. It's frustrating feeling quite certain how good they can be and then to read that they could be dropped for some filler and made the scapegoats of what I see is a poorly coached team. Dufty and Norman were persisted with for so long last year. That right-off a year was the perfect time to give them the development in first grade they needed so we didn't face this issue now. We should have seen them much earlier in the year so that we could reap the benefits now. Feels like another coach that can't make up his mind about his team (see switching Ramsey to fb last week) and hitting panic mode. He will put it down to their inexperience but why can't our young stars take the same trajectory of the likes of Walsh, Campbell, Walker or any one of the freaks Penrith keep producing? Takes a bit of faith to begin with, and maybe some proper coaching and management. Much easier to drop them.
We should be a club on the rise by now but instead I go into the match against the Eels with zero confidence. If we can repeat the efforts of the corresponding game last year I am happy to eat my words but the Eels are licking their lips at the prospect of taking us on and that's just the cold, hard truth.
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